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‘Oh, not again’: U.S. Northeast hit with another storm; South still reeling from ice

At least 18 deaths blamed on storm that has shuttered schools and businesses, grounded flights and left hundreds of thousands without power.

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A deadly ice and snow storm that has hit southern US rolls towards the north eastern seaboard. Sarah Toms reports.(Reuters)

By Kate BrumbackAssociated Press

Thu., Feb. 13, 2014

PHILADELPHIA—Yet another storm paralyzed the U.S. Northeast with heavy snow and sleet Thursday, giving the winter-weary that oh-no-not-again feeling, while hundreds of thousands across the ice-encrusted South waited in the cold for the electricity to come back on.

“Snow has become a four-letter word,” lamented Tom McGarrigle, a politician in suburban Philadelphia, where shovelling out has become a weekly — sometimes twice-weekly — chore.

The sloppy and treacherous mix of snow and sleet grounded more than 6,500 flights Thursday and closed schools and businesses as it made its way up the heavily populated Interstate 95 corridor.

In its icy wake, utility crews in the South toiled to restore electricity to more than 800,000 homes and businesses, mostly in the Carolinas and Georgia. Temperatures in the hard-hit Atlanta area, with more than 200,000 outages, were expected to drop below freezing again overnight.

At least 20 deaths, mostly in traffic accidents, were blamed on the storm.

Among the dead was a pregnant woman who was struck by a mini-plow in New York City. Her baby was delivered in critical condition via Caesarean section. The victims also included a man hit by a falling tree limb in North Carolina.

Baltimore awoke to 38 centimetres of snow. Washington, D.C., had at least 20, and federal offices and the city’s two main airports were closed. The Virginia-West Virginia state line got more than 30 centimetres.

Philadelphia had nearly 23 centimetres, its fourth 15-centimetre snowstorm of the season — the first time that has happened in the city since record-keeping began in the late 1800s. New York City received nearly 25 centimetres, and parts of New Jersey had almost 28.

The Boston area was expecting 10 to 15, while inland Connecticut and Massachusetts were looking at 30 centimetres or more.

In some places, the snow and freezing rain eased up during the day, but a second wave was expected overnight into Friday.

“It’s like a dog chasing its tail all day,” said Pat O’Pake, a plow operator in Pennsylvania.

In New Cumberland, Pa., which had about 25 centimetres of snow by mid-afternoon, Randal DeIvernois had to shovel after his snow blower conked out.

“Every time it snows, it’s like, oh, not again,” he said. “I didn’t get this much snow when I lived in Colorado. It’s warmer at the Olympics than it is here. That’s ridiculous.”

Across the South, the storm left in its wake a world of ice-encrusted trees and driveways and snapped branches and power lines.

In Bonneau, S.C., Jimmy Ward and his wife, Cherie, lost power and spent Wednesday night in their home, warming themselves in front of a gas log fire.

But after running low on propane, they headed Thursday night for a hotel, where it was expected to be cozier but a lot less exciting than the night before.

“From 2 o’clock yesterday until this morning, it just sounded like gunfire — all the trees popping and falling,” Cherie Ward said.

In North Carolina, where the storm caused huge traffic jams in the Raleigh area on Wednesday as people left work and rushed to get home in the middle of the day, National Guardsmen in high-riding Humvees patrolled the snowy roads, looking for any stranded motorists.

Some roads around Raleigh remained clogged with abandoned vehicles Thursday morning. City crews were working to tow them to safe areas where their owners could recover them.

Around the country, this is shaping up as one of the snowiest winters on record. As of early this month, Washington, Detroit, Boston, Chicago, New York and St. Louis had gotten roughly two or three times as much snow as they normally receive at this point in the season.

The procession of storms and cold blasts — blamed in part on a kink in the jet stream, the high-altitude air currents that dictate weather — has cut into retail sales across the U.S., the Commerce Department reported Thursday. Sales dipped 0.4 per cent in January.

In New York City, the teachers union and TV weatherman Al Roker harshly criticized Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to keep the schools open.

Roker, who was in Russia for the Winter Olympics but has a daughter in New York’s public schools, said on Twitter: “It’s going to take some kid or kids getting hurt before this goofball policy gets changed.”

The mayor said many parents depend on schools to watch over their children while they are at work.

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